As the web gets more efficient, companies doing well in organic search will plow more of their organic search profits into paid search even if it loses money, so that they may lock out competition, maintain momentum and exposure, build a strong relationship with Google, minimize business risks, and support the ecosystem which provides their profit.

In after hours trading today Amazon eclipsed Yahoo in market capitalization! Seeing Amazon add more editorial content, extend into new markets, and have expanding margins while Yahoo! has went nowhere in the last year shows Google is still gaining marketshare, and that the search ecosystem is going to become more self reinforcing as time passes.

While Google may continue to dominate the market, I don't think that it will end up with a market share much larger than the one it has for a number of reasons:

- Monopolies make for bad business.
- People will become afraid to trust their information with a non-competitive business.
- As the internet becomes more global, the chances of Google finding stronger competition increase.

Wow Amazon is finally making a decent profit margin.
Nice to see the walmart of the web taking off.

Yahoo is going nowhere because portals in general have gone nowhere in a long time. Google is a better tool. Not saying portals are a dead concept. They are best suited to niche market segments that a broad search can't reach. Why navigate AOL/Yahoo when you can have google find it for you?

I am not surprised to hear about Amazon. I work with retailers who used to be 100% eBay.

A year ago, when someone sold on eBay and Amazon, they did about 70% eBay vs. Amazon in volume. About 6 months ago, it was 50/50. Today, they are selling more on Amazon - at much higher prices and margins.

eBay's bad reputation is turning it into a lemon market, if you remember from an economics class.

I do a little PPC advertising for affiliate I work with, and sometimes I only break even. That being said, I view this as a win for me, because I'm branding my site and I'm getting potential return visitors.

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